“We are glad to be back in Toronto! It’s been … a minute”
I almost detected a note of disappointment or resentment when Black Kids front man Reggie Youngblood said this during their comeback show at the Garrison on Monday night. That quote made me think of Flight of the Navigator, an ’80s movie with this amazing poster:
In this movie, a little kid falls into a creek, wakes up a few minutes later and realizes it’s actually 8 years later. The reason? He actually went on board a space ship for a few minutes but because of the space-time continuum, those minutes actually played out to years in Earth time. It’s also mentioned in Interstellar but why reference that when you can reference an obscure ’80s movie? Anyways the kid finds that everything has changed around him and has difficulty adjusting.
The quote reminded me of that movie because, in a way, it’s only been a minute since Black Kids released their debut album Partie Traumatic to much acclaim and popularity, yet the world has changed so much since. Let’s take a trip back down memory lane. Black Kids exploded onto the scene about ten years ago with a bevy of fun pop singles that were perfectly tailored to indie dance floors. People loved indie music. People loved gang vocals. They sold out the Phoenix if I recall. The world was theirs.
Only it wasn’t.
No idea what happened, but the group faded from the scene and so it was to much surprise that they released a new album this year. Rookie is their sophomore effort and it’s a solid album, full of a lot of the fun elements that made everyone like them so much a full decade ago. Yet the band only played to half capacity at the Garrison. No longer the fresh face on the block, the world that Black Kids came back to is rather different. Yet it’s only been a minute.
Now that I’ve got my wide reaching and probably incorrectly written theory out of the way, the show itself was very enjoyable. The group excels at danceable songs and the new record fully supports that. The show was heavy on new material as one would expect, and the small but enthusiastic crowd had a fun time dancing and jumping around to the tunes. One girl actually spelled out IFFY (a song on their new record) like one would do when the Village People sing YMCA. It was rather charming. One of the great things about seeing a band that time might have forgotten is the act of rediscovery and it made me realize how good some of the songs from Partie Traumatic are. It speaks volumes that I still knew the lyrics to “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You”. For their part, the band seemed to have a great time. Maybe this is a new beginning. I’m sure the fans at the show would hope so.